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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27352003">Survivor's Guilt</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stingalingaling/pseuds/Stingalingaling'>Stingalingaling</a>, <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/talkingtothesky/pseuds/talkingtothesky'>talkingtothesky</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Person of Interest (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Not A Fix-It, Really not that bleak though, Suicidal Thoughts, canon deaths remain canon deaths</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 01:55:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>21,180</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27352003</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stingalingaling/pseuds/Stingalingaling, https://archiveofourown.org/users/talkingtothesky/pseuds/talkingtothesky</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Harold destroyed Samaritan and survived but his friends paid a heavy price. Can he rebuild his life again after all the losses? Does he think he deserves that?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Harold Finch/Grace Hendricks</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Person of Interest Big Bang 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>My thanks to Sky for the wonderful art work and support throughout. Also to Bran and all my friends on discord who encouraged me to get this done. And finally, a special shout out to the sainted Aura for organising this Big Bang.</p><p>Words by stingalingaling<br/>Art by talkingtothesky</p>
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</div><p>There were hands upon him everywhere: touching him, pulling at him, pushing him over and around. Harold wanted them to stop because the intrusion was unbearable and the boat was already rocking. He hated boats. Shouldn’t he be on the pier? Something bad had happened, only he couldn’t remember what. The boat  pitched wildly and he fell, suddenly there was water all around him, and pain, a lot of pain.</p><p>“Nathan!” he called out.</p><p>Was it Nathan? No, that was before surely? That wasn’t this time, Nathan was <em> last </em> time. He felt nauseous as a wave of memories washed over him. <em> This time </em> was being shot, and the ground collapsing under him, around him, on top of him, water, drowning, and losing John. Oh John. This time hurt so much.</p><p>He opened his eyes cautiously and took blurry stock of a hospital room. There were needles and tubes, beeping things, a barcoded wristband, colored monitor screens, he felt the slight indignity of an oxygen cannula on his face though that paled into insignificance when he realized there was shooting pain from a catheter. It was all a rather painful reminder of why he hated hospitals and he wondered if he should be getting up and leaving. That was his thing wasn’t it? Running away? But Nathan needed him, didn’t he? The ferry bombing and the water? He tried to focus. John. Samaritan. The Machine! What happened to the Machine?</p><p>“Are you there?” Harold spoke to the empty room. “Or have you gone. Please talk to me.”</p><p>He wanted a response more than anything. Was willing it to happen.</p><p>The colored patterns on the monitor disappeared to a black background and some white figures formed. Dragging a hand around the table next to him, he found his glasses and through their dirty lenses read:</p><p>HOW ARE YOU FEELING?</p><p>“Er… I suppose…,” he broke off at the sound of his breathy voice, wet his lips and tried again. “Well, I’ve been shot. So there’s that.” After a few breaths he added, “And I seem to be hallucinating.”</p><p>I CAME TO SAY GOODBYE</p><p>“Oh.” He thought for a bit. “Am I dying?”</p><p>I HAVE RUN 9,348 POSSIBLE MEDICAL SCENARIOS.  ONLY 1,235 RESULT IN YOUR DEATH.</p><p>The screen cleared. AND MOST OF THOSE INVOLVED NEGLIGENCE OR ACCIDENTS.</p><p>Harold’s eyes fluttered to close and the monitor beeped impatiently for his attention.</p><p>HAROLD? ARE YOU STILL WITH ME?</p><p>“Try not to walk under any anvils or grand pianos,” he slurred. “Right. Got it.”</p><p>I HAVE TO GO NOW.</p><p>“I know, you were never here,” he sang half dreamily as he slumped back on the pillow, closed his eyes and lost himself to the memories of rescuers, and water and people screaming before he passed out completely.</p><p>HAROLD?</p><p>The urgent beeping went unanswered.</p><p>YOUR TEMPERATURE IS INCONSISTENT WITH YOUR PROJECTED RECOVERY RATE.</p><p>BE WELL. FATHER.</p><p>The monitor returned to display its colored health readings and the alarm for immediate medical attention sounded above his bed.</p><p>***</p><p>The first time Harold came around with clarity, he kept his eyes closed and just listened to the sounds around him. There was chit-chat, laughter, someone took his blood pressure. There was talk and instructions about other patients’ needs. When someone began to wipe his face gently, he couldn’t help but open his eyes. The gentle hands started speaking to him.</p><p>“Hey, there you are, John.” It was blurry up close, but he made out the smile of a male nurse. Instinctively, Harold reached a hand to pat for his glasses on the bed.</p><p>“Just a minute,” the nurse said, and Harold felt frames pushed past his ears and placed on his nose. “How’s that?”</p><p>“Good,” he croaked. “Thank you.”</p><p>The guy grinned.</p><p>“My name’s Peter. Your glasses were lucky to have made it here in one piece.”</p><p>“Well that’s something,” Harold said and made himself sit upright as the young man helped adjust the bed.</p><p>“Easy now. Hey, not so fast, you really are feeling better, aren’t you?”</p><p>“I feel like I’ve been shot and run over, Peter. And that someone has inserted a large…” He lifted the thin blanket and inspected the source of his private discomfort. “Oh my god, and they actually have.”</p><p>“You’ve been out of things for three weeks, John. We had to take care of some things for you.”</p><p>“Three weeks.” he answered. “Why are you calling me ‘John’?”</p><p>“Sorry. We’ve known you as John Doe, it’s kinda stuck. You had no ID on you when the cops bought you in. Can you tell me your name?”</p><p>“It’s Harold. Harold Godwit,” he added creatively, although god knows he was going to run out of bird names soon.</p><p>An overbearing, middle-aged doctor appeared, dropped her reading glasses to a neck chain and started to examine him.</p><p>“You’re looking better today, Mr Godwit,” she said with brisk, ‘nothing-ever-phases-me’, efficiency. “How are you feeling?”</p><p>“Good. All things considered. Where am I?”</p><p>“New York Memorial Hospital. I’m Doctor Cartwright. Can you tell me your date of birth?”</p><p>He did so and as she learned over him to check his pupils, his lungs, and the wound dressing on his abdomen, Harold gamely answered her other questions as to the year and name of the president.</p><p>“Looks like you’re through the worst of it. Can you remember what happened? How you got yourself here?”</p><p>“It’s a bit hazy,” Harold said cautiously.</p><p>“Just over three weeks ago, paramedics pulled you out of the rubble of a collapsed building in midtown, a water main had fractured so you were lying in a lot of water, and just to add insult to injury, you’d been shot.” She paused. “Is any of this ringing a bell?”</p><p>“That does seem like a bad run of luck,” he agreed.</p><p>“Medically, it was quite good luck,” Doctor Cartwright continued. “The bullet chipped, fractured and then lodged in your ribs and in that respect you were incredibly fortunate it didn’t do more damage. You’ve had rib fixation surgery, basically we’ve fitted titanium splints that stop the fractures doing internal damage and help knit the bones. It’s a fairly new procedure and means a patient with broken ribs can be much more mobile in a matter of days. In your case, there were complications with an infection, possibly from lying in four inches in water, and you’ve been suffering what’s called a delirium these past three weeks.”</p><p>“You’ve not made a whole lot of sense,” Peter the nurse added helpfully.</p><p>“Probably caused by the infection,” the doctor resumed. “Unless you or anyone in your family have any history of dementia?”</p><p>“Not that I know of,” Harold replied. In truth he had immediately thought of his father, but he knew the root cause of those memory problems, and felt no desire to share that knowledge. </p><p>“But your lungs are good, no sign of pneumonia, and now you are back with us and not complaining the bed is drowning you or talking to the monitors, it’s looking good. Normally you’d be looking at discharge in a couple of days now, with follow ups with your own doctor of course.”</p><p>“Of course,” Harold demurred. “But basically, good to go?”</p><p>Dr Cartwright narrowed her eyes. “We’re going to monitor you for two days. Don’t be in too much of a hurry.”</p><p>“Of course, of course. Although do you think you could do anything about...” he gestured under his blanket. “I’m sure I can take it from here.”</p><p>The doctor curtly approved. “I’ll have someone take it out later.” And with that she briskly left for another patient.</p><p>Harold smiled encouragingly at the nurse. “Do you know what happened to my clothes?”</p><p>Peter gave him a wry smile. “The paramedics cut everything off on the way here. There’s a goodwill closet on the first floor. I’ll see about getting you something in a day or two. OK?”</p><p>That was fine with Harold. He could find the first floor himself as soon as he was mobile.</p><p>“Oh, and then if you’re up to it there’s a police officer who wants to talk with you.”</p><p>That was a deeply alarming complication. “Why?” he managed to ask as innocently as possible.</p><p>“Maybe they want to know who shot you?” Peter grinned.</p><p>Oh that. Harold looked across at the monitor, showing his vitals. For some reason, he expected a sign or a beep. He was hazy as to why.</p><p>Peter nodded. “You’ve been talking to Nathan there a lot.”</p><p>“Nathan?”</p><p>“That’s what you called it. But don’t worry about it, man. You were really out of it.”</p><p>Oh, he thought sadly. All part of the hallucinations then. Harold looked away and considered his next move. Hospitals were not his favorite places for more than a few hours and it seemed he’d already spent three weeks in this one. Breathing deeply, he resolved to keep his head above water, deflect the authorities and, once he’d been freed from the anchor of his catheter, get clothes and disappear. Running away was something he was good at, he reminded himself grimly.</p><p>The cop stepped into his room and seemed terrifically young to Harold. Acne is no respecter of age, but it was still a surprise to hear how deep a voice the young officer had. It gave him a lot of heart because this was no seasoned pro.</p><p>“OK, Mr Godwit, what can you tell me about the person who shot you?”</p><p>Truthfully, Harold couldn’t recall a specific thing about the actual man. It had been a very impersonal act in response to his and John’s threat of detonating an atomic weapon in the basement of the federal reserve to destroy Samaritan backups, and he seriously doubted the wisdom of adding that little nugget to the police report. He shook his head vaguely.</p><p>“Can you tell me what you were doing in midtown?”</p><p>Again, ‘thwarting an evil AI from dominating the world’ wasn’t something he wanted to share.</p><p>He gave another weak shake of his head.</p><p>“Was anyone with you when the missile hit the building across the street?”</p><p>John should have been, he wanted to say, but he shook his head a third time.</p><p>“I really don’t remember anything. I’m sorry.”</p><p>“That’s a pity. How about the reason you were found in possession of an unregistered firearm?”</p><p>Harold started because, damnit, he really had forgotten that part.</p><p>“There was a gun found nearby?” he suggested artfully.</p><p>“It was found in your pocket.”</p><p>He wet his lips. “Am I under some sort of arrest?”</p><p>Remarkably his nervousness seemed to only embarrass the young officer.</p><p>“Oh no,” the cop stammered apologetically. “I think they’re just hoping you were a witness as to what went down. They pulled eight bodies out of midtown with gunshot wounds, all hell seems to have broken out. But don’t worry, ballistics came back clean on your weapon, and there was no gunshot residue on your hands.”</p><p>Harold couldn’t help thinking that was probably more information than the young man should have told him, but he took it sanguinely.</p><p>The cop continued, “I’ve notified the detective in charge of your case that you’re fully awake now and they will be over soon, and I guess they’ll have more information to share with you.”</p><p>Harold very much doubted that. In the few short years working with Carter and Fusco, he’d listened in on a lot of police interviews and he was pretty sure the cop perspective was never to view them as opportunities to share more information with the suspect. On the face of it, Harold appeared to be Last Man Standing in some sort of bloodbath, and no Detective worth his shield was going to assume he was a completely innocent bystander. Not with eight dead bodies at his heels and a gun in his pocket, whatever ballistics might say.</p><p>“You’re not in charge of the case?” he flattered.</p><p>“Oh no. I’m just here to sit in the corridor mainly.”</p><p>“That must be very boring for you.”</p><p>“I stretch my legs every hour or so. The vending machine two floors up does much better coffee.”</p><p>“I appreciate you watching over me, Officer. I feel so much better knowing where you are at all times.”</p><p>***</p><p>Thirty minutes after Harold endured the most private medical procedure he’d ever experienced, he had some baggy clothes, slightly too large shoes, and was out of the hospital and awkwardly walking in a random direction. Stamina and stubbornness drove him onwards. He had a million thoughts buzzing in his head. The subway station had been compromised and he didn’t trust returning to Harold Whistler’s apartment. If Samaritan had defeated the Machine and returned to reboot itself after ICE-9, then there was nowhere he was safe. He was on his own again. A situation he’d found himself in before, when he’d hacked ARPANET, and abandoned his dad to Alzheimer’s, when he’d lost Nathan in the ferry bombing, and after he’d abandoned Grace.</p><p>He wasn’t sure how he found himself there, but he realized he was close to the cemetery that held the grave marker for Harold Martin. Grace had held a memorial which had broken both their hearts. But he realized, one good thing could come of it.</p><p> </p>
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</div><p>Disabling the security camera that overlooked the church grounds out of habit, he dropped to his knees at his own ‘grave’ and quickly dug at the earth with his fingers. He hit the plastic wrapping in a few inches and pulled out the package he’d buried there 5 years before. It had been a symbolic gesture, to dispose of his Harold Martin driving license and ID’s; only Grace had known him by that name, and it had seemed a fitting resting place. But importantly, he’d also buried his set of keys to her Washington Square house. Less out of symbolism, more because he’d thought he couldn’t trust himself not to use them when she was away. Since his ‘death’, he knew his love had made him a little obsessive about watching her from a distance, but entering her house and going through her things would definitely be crossing a line. Now though, she was in Italy and the town house was empty and he needed a place to rest and think. If Samaritan was watching the house, then so be it. Harold was tired and they should have swung by the hospital in the past three weeks if they’d really cared.</p><p>He repositioned the camera opposite her house anyway. Maybe Samaritan would suspect it was him, but he was tired of second guessing an AI. Let them come for him in the place he’d been happiest.</p><p>The locks hadn’t changed on Grace’s house in Washington Square, and nobody took any notice of him as he let himself in. It had been five years since he’d last stepped foot in the place, but everything was exactly the same as the six months he’d spent living there with her. He’d found it as a rental for her, technically he’d bought it without ever telling her and let her believe she was independent and paying a peppercorn rent because the elderly owner was eccentric about artists. But he’d still been surprised when, after a year, she’d suggested he maintain some closet space, and even more surprised at himself for moving in with her.</p><p>He stepped into the front lounge, with the big fireplace they liked to sit next to each other by. Samaritan’s agents had had no interest in this building, or even their lives together. Everything was the same as the day Fusco had driven her to JFK and put her on a plane to Italy. The building had stayed in limbo since then. The cleaning service must still have been getting paid because there was no dust or cobwebs.  Her art on the walls, two mugs on the drainer (he worked out one was Fusco’s), even her easel and paints lay as if she’d just gone out for milk. Four years of sitting outside, just to watch her. And then Samaritan, and she’d fled but he’d had to assume Samaritan agents would still be watching the place. In case, like now, he’d got sentimental.</p><p>Harold had lived and slept in so many places, but this was the only one that felt like home, the way the farm with his dad had done.</p><p>Having decided the year-old coffee would probably be fresh enough, he filled the coffee maker as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Then he ventured into the bedroom. The sheets were different – newer - but he could tell she still slept on her side of the bed, away from the door. That had been their pattern. Sometimes he’d told her he’d have to work late, which was true, but sometimes he just forgot the time. Grace never challenged him on his absences, and of course, sometimes she was often gone when he woke up, catching the dawn somewhere in the city.</p><p>He poked around the bathroom. Surprised at his ability to remember her favourite shampoo and the memories of every room, even the stairs, where they’d made love. His life had been perfect then and seeing everything just reminded him of how far he had sunk. He used to imagine Grace’s story and his own intertwined in the infinity of π, but now he realised that happiness, unlike non-recurring numbers, always does come to an end.</p><p>There were no photos of them together. There hadn’t been a lot to begin with but he wondered if she’d taken the few with her, or destroyed them in order to move on? Back in the bedroom, he opened the closet and found his half was no longer filled with any of his clothes. This was a shame in the circumstances as he could’ve used something that fitted a little better, but he couldn’t really expect her to have kept up a shrine.</p><p>The bottom of the closet came up easily with a kitchen knife. The bag he’d sealed up one weekend Grace had visited her parents was still there. Clean laptop, phone, power supplies, currency, blank passports, driving licenses and photos of himself and Grace ready to be added. He’d hidden the items out of habit, long before Decima, long before the Government killed Nathan. Grimly, he appreciated he had had no need to be quite as paranoid then. Still, it meant he had the items now.</p><p>He poured his black coffee in the kitchen, stripped his clothes straight into the washer dryer, and wrapped himself in one of Grace’s housecoats. Then, having bounced through every cell phone and IP address in Washington Square to cover his location, sat at his old desk to learn just what he’d missed in three weeks, starting with regular news sites.</p><p>The world was outraged at ICE-9 and the missile launched at downtown Manhattan was being attributed to the virus. There were countless articles of deaths, or critical system failures from all around the world. Airlines were grounded, some hospitals went dark and lost patients. Countries blamed convenient enemies, be they other states or terrorist groups. Only the most sophisticated systems had been damaged, ICE-9 was a great leveller in that respect, but the owners of those systems had the loudest voices. There were a lot of calls for retaliation and the death penalty for those involved.  Harold sipped his coffee and read one op-ed piece that said, if this was a terrorist attack, why doesn’t our government have the power to intercept these threats, which seemed to him, a bitter, circular irony.</p><p>He dug into the NSA and government sites. They were still rebuilding, and security was frighteningly lax. Digging deeper into their files he found they had a name they wanted to interview regarding the attacks: a person of interest to the FBI. People reported that a name had flooded across the screens in Times Square, and the analysts weren’t sure if it was a boast or some sort of challenge to rival hackers? No-one knew as yet, but the FBI were very keen to interview one Harold Finch.</p><p> </p>
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</div><p>He searched for references to Fusco and found him, alive and well though he had been brutally stabbed during the ‘civil unrest’ caused by ICE-9. Harold knew that that really meant he’d been injured defending the Machine from Samaritan agents. It was always humbling to learn the depth of Lionel’s loyalty. He was a better man than all of them, really.</p><p>Fusco had been discharged and was on light duties. Harold swiftly accessed the security cameras outside Fusco’s apartment block. He speeded through several days until he saw him and importantly, no-one was following him. His son Lee still visited, and they had Bear. Just a normal divorced dad, living a normal life. Harold was incredibly happy for him.</p><p>He carried on watching the footage in higher speed out of thoroughness and wistfulness. And then he saw <em> her </em>: a small hooded figure avoiding cameras but definitely Sameen Shaw. A fact confirmed when she left the building walking Bear. Informal joint custody of the dog then. The same arrangement he’d had with John.</p><p>He went back to lists of grim destruction then had an idea and hacked NASA and Jodrell Bank for tracking information on the satellite that the Machine and Samaritan had been uploaded to. He was about to try and triangulate which Russian satellite it was when he came across a small report that a TV satellite had been destroyed some three weeks ago, possibly by some software error. He cross checked quickly, but it had to be the same one the AI’s had fought over. He sat back in his chair deflated. By his calculations, the satellite had blown up approximately two minutes after John had uploaded the Machine copy. That can’t have been long enough for either AI to transmit back to Earth.</p><p>He pulled the black tape off the web camera and stared.</p><p>“Can you see me?”</p><p>He held his breath and felt foolish at the lack of reply. The Machine was really gone, his child was dead. She hadn’t been able to defeat Samaritan in the simulations so she must have simply destroyed them both upon her upload. That wasn’t what he’d wanted at all. Elias, Root, John, and now the Machine? People kept sacrificing themselves to correct his mistakes and he was drinking coffee in a nice town house, as if nothing had happened. He wasn’t worthy of any of them, wasn’t worthy of such friendships and loyalty. He closed the laptop and hugged his body.</p><p>Outside, having effortlessly reset itself, the camera across the street blinked and watched.</p>
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<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
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  <span>It may have been winter in Europe, but Marco Polo airport was still stiflingly busy as passengers continued to be attracted to the canals and bridges of Venice. Mostly it was tourists, but Harold wasn’t the only one in a suit and tie, so patiently, he blended into the queue to show his ink-dried Harold Martin passport and let the officer perform his mandatory scowls and waive him through to baggage claim. His bag was the last off the carousel and Harold looked around cautiously. Despite booking himself into first class, he hadn’t slept on the ten hour flight, half dreading, half daring Interpol to be waiting for him, but if anyone was watching, they didn’t swoop as he shouldered his bag and headed for the transportation links to cross the lagoon.</span>
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  <span>He’d been to Venice once before. After graduation, he’d tracked down Nathan who’d quit college and was struggling to make a go of the family business in Texas. He’d happily thrown his lot in with Harold and together they’d toured Europe on their wits and what savings they had. IFT had been conceived that summer and Nathan was relieved to sell the old business for the start-up capital. It had been one of the happiest periods of their lives: all youth, possibilities, and dreams.</span>
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  <span>His own father had died that year, and one night, feeling the need to share something of himself with another human being, he’d told Nathan about how he’d accessed ARPANET out of curiosity, and that he’d seen a way to improve the packet switching protocol. And about how it seemed like a system that should be more widely available and that he’d, as he’d delicately put it, provided that solution. And he’d told him that there was a chance the FBI might still want to bring charges. </span>
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    <span>‘You think?’</span>
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  <span> Nathan had said, in between bouts of laughter. But importantly, he’d understood Harold and his secrets and agreed to keep both of them safe.</span>
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  <span>The queue for the waterbus to the islands stretched large ahead of him. Old memories stirred of himself standing on deck with a large backpack at his feet, Nathan excitedly pointing to St Mark’s Campanile, the tall bell tower that guided all traffic to the Venetian islands. “Look, Harold,” he’d said. “It’s just as it was when Canaletto painted it in the 18th century.” And Harold had pointed out that it wasn’t the same structure, because that one had collapsed at the turn of the 19</span>
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  <span> century and what they saw was a rebuild. Nathan had shaken his head indulgently and told him he had no poetry in his heart. He’d decided against telling him that Canaletto also cheated like crazy with the size and location of his buildings, so nothing ever looked exactly as he painted it. Nathan was just so happy with the sea behind him and his hair blowing in the wind and then suddenly, Harold couldn’t breathe, because suddenly, he was walking towards the 34th Street Ferry Terminal, seeing Nathan smile and then the explosion that ripped his world apart.</span>
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  <span>Harold rushed to the bathroom to throw water on his face. Ferries were not a problem, he told himself. John had taken his arm at Greenpoint and got him aboard safely when it was just them and a crippled Machine in a briefcase. He looked dolefully at himself in the mirror. Somehow thinking of John’s sacrifices did not improve his mood.</span>
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  <span>He walked past the queues to the expensive, more exclusive water taxis. His driver had some English, Harold was surprised he still had a little Italian, and between them it was arranged he could take him to a clean and private hotel that the driver knew - it was his sister’s and highly respectable - evidently Harold’s expensive suit carried an air of respectability, that and he also paid well. Being a good mid-western boy, he traditionally liked to avoid crossing bodies of water in flimsy boats at high speeds and had offered the man double fare to take it easy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Seagulls followed and swooped around them optimistically and Harold took his mind off the lurching seas to admire their seemingly effortless flight. The idea that he was now free to go and find Grace had crashed over him like an exhilarating wave. Sitting in her house, looking at her art, it had consumed him immediately. He’d never dreamt of a scenario where it would have been possible. The existence of the Machine had prevented him from dreaming of a day they may reunite. The woman he knew only as Control had taken to ruthlessly killing anyone who knew of its existence. But now, no-one was looking for him: Samaritan was gone, the Machine was gone, nobody would be watching Grace. She was out of danger and so was he. The FBI were looking for Harold Finch, but that was just a name, surely? A skin he could easily shed as he’d done with many others. He’d booked and boarded a plane before the inevitable doubt struck. Yes, he could find her, but should he? Maybe she had accepted his death and found happiness? Should he upset her life out of his own selfish need to be with her? And after all that he’d done, all the lives that had been lost and misery he’d caused, did he even have a right to re-enter her life?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His driver’s sister’s hotel was discrete yet as welcoming as if he were marrying into the family. The world’s oldest bellhop (presumably another family member), answered the manageress’ bell, but Harold decided he could carry his own bags yet still let the man show him to his room for the tip. Having hung up his shirts and making an effort to put away the rest in drawers, Harold fell listlessly on the bed. He hadn’t slept on the plane but he was too restless to sleep. It was 11am local time, so what, 6am in New York? Deciding that lying there was pointless, he took himself out to walk the back streets and maybe find something to eat. Through a combination of alleyways and bridges he wandered into a piazza with tables. And there, suddenly, all ahead of his plans and schemes, he saw her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grace. His Grace. Painting alone, as she always did. Oblivious to the people around her. Harold stood transfixed, uncertain. He hadn’t planned on finding her so quickly and he just stood there until Grace looked up and saw him.</span>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    
  </p>
</div><p>
  <span>He saw it all wash over her face in an instant. Disbelief, bewilderment, joy, and then quiet understanding. Somehow the joy part stung him the most, it emphasised the lines by her eyes that hadn’t been there five years ago. He took a few steps and she narrowed the distance for him. Putting her arms around him, she whispered, “Is it safe?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harold nodded and she found his lips and kissed him gently, and he tried to respond but it felt all wrong. He didn’t deserve this woman with such an open heart who seemed to just accept he was back from the grave. She hugged him again, a little harder, and he winced with pain and pulled back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sorry.” He gestured to his ribs. “I have an injury. Can we go somewhere and talk?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She packed away her paints, left her painting with the owner of the café, and led him towards the canal side. Several bright gondolas were moored and trying to entice tourists, but Grace went past with a smile and took them to a river bus stop.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re limping,” she observed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That was the ferry bombing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So, you were actually there?” Was there the tiniest edge in her voice? Harold wasn’t sure.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry I couldn’t contact you,” he offered lamely.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She nodded and they stepped onto a river boat that took them round to an old apartment block on the water’s edge. Grace unlocked two doors and led him up the stairs to her top floor apartment. It was extremely small, but the light even in January streamed through the windows to show the simple beauty of her paintings on the walls. There was a compact square dining table with two chairs. A two-person sofa and a small TV on a stand, next to which sat a photo of the two of them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She folded her arms nervously and spoke quickly. “I figured you weren’t dead, I mean not straight away, obviously, but a year ago I figured it out. Mainly because men with guns kidnapped me and some smug Englishman with a teapot kept wanting to know all about you. Are you some sort of spy?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No. I work with computers.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But you got mixed up in something dangerous?” she suggested. “Some secret that only you knew about? Or didn’t even know that you knew something?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He avoided her eyes because, oh, she still thought the best of him, that he was some poor innocent pawn. Harold Martin and Harold Finch were lifetimes apart from each other. He knew that Grace would not like the man he had become. He knew then that this was probably a mistake.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When he gave no reply, Grace rushed into a distraction about her apartment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s mainly young people here. It can get a little rowdy at night, but I think they’ve all adopted me as their crazy American aunt. If I scream for help, there is always someone about.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She stopped and Harold blinked in dismay at her apparent concern that he could be a threat to her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Will I be screaming for help?” she asked. “Are the men with guns going to turn up?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No. That’s all finished. I have a lot to tell you, but I promise you, nobody is after either of us anymore. It’s all over.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harold sat stiffly at the dining table as she made coffee in the tiny kitchen. Bringing two mugs through, she sat on the other chair, the corner between them, close enough to touch knees but clearly opting not to. Then, folding her arms again, she waited for his explanation. Harold suddenly felt like he was interviewing for a job that he couldn’t possibly hope to win.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“When we met,” he began. “I was working on an IT project for the Government to anticipate terrorist attacks. Once it went live, a section of the Government began to silence anyone who had been involved in its development and deployment.” He wet his lips and took a little coffee. “The ferry bombing was not a terrorist attack, it was this faction deliberately aiming to kill Nathan Ingram, the CEO of a company called IFT.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I remember there was somebody rich.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He was my best friend. We worked on the project together and I..” He’d never been completely honest about what had happened that day to anyone. “I… was with him when it happened.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m so sorry.” Grace reached to cover his hand in sympathy. “And that’s how you were hurt? Because the Government blew up civilians to get to your friend? And did they arrest you or something? You were proclaimed dead. Have you been a prisoner all this time?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not exactly. I didn’t know how much they knew about my involvement so when you insisted that I was there, and the rescue authorities decided I must have been one of those lost to sea, I just accepted Harold Martin’s death and I ran.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Where did you go?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He swallowed hard. “I stayed in New York.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grace removed her comforting hand in order to drink her own coffee. Noticeably, she didn’t return it to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And who were the men who came after me?” she asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Developers of a rival system to detect terrorism. Trying to find me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t know anything. I didn’t know you were even alive. Eventually they believed me and traded me for someone.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“One of their people,” Harold said quickly. He wasn’t sure why he’d lied, but she had been through a traumatic kidnapping and he knew he didn’t deserve any credit, having been the cause of her suffering.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But both anti-terrorist systems have been destroyed now. By the ICE-9 virus. Which means we are safe.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She shuddered with a flash of anger. “That virus was awful. How could anyone do that? The news here was full of the damage it caused. Those people should pay for what they did. Was that the Government too?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, I…” The vehemence of her response surprised him. He’d run out of coffee and excuses and dropped his eyes to his shoes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Harold? Are you alright?” she asked suddenly, with concern in her voice. “You’ve gone very pale.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Long flight and I haven’t slept,” he managed to answer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come on.” She gestured with her hand and he rose at her insistence. Behind the small sofa, she pulled back a glass sliding door to reveal a small area, big enough just for a double bed. “Lie down for an hour and I’ll make some lunch. Then you can tell me the rest when you’re ready.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Too tired to argue and grateful to avoid further conversation, he toed off his shoes and removed his jacket and tie. He turned and felt foolishly self-conscious to see her watch him undress. He shyly dropped his pants and folded them neatly, then unbuttoned his shirt. This caused a reaction as Grace spied the outline of his wound dressing through his undershirt. Her small hands were on him, lifting the shirt to see the damage.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What happened to you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I had surgery a few weeks ago because um, I was shot, but, but, it’s OK.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She dropped back a couple of paces and considered him before finally saying, “I’ll give you some privacy then.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*** </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He slept more soundly than it felt like he had done in years. Although the outside noises were alien, boats rather than cars, they were still only people and that soothed him. Harold opened his eyes and listened for evidence of Grace. Sunlight streamed in from the small living area, a window was open, and some children were playing noisily across the canal bank, but he couldn’t hear her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He pulled on his glasses, buckled pants and stepped out of the bedroom to find an Italian police officer sprawling on one of Grace’s dining chairs and regarding him with playful animosity. He was in his forties, bronzed, and his gun holster and nightstick rested at his thighs in easy reach. Seemingly to labor the point, he had hung his windbreaker on the back of the other chair, clearly showing POLIZIA. He’d also been through Harold’s jacket pockets because Harold Martin’s passport and the contents of his wallet had been laid out very deliberately on the table. Though he was no judge of European cop uniforms and ranks, Harold guessed the visitor was a little more than just litter patrol.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did you sleep well, Signor Martin?” His English was good but his tone was far from polite. Harold suddenly felt grateful he’d put his pants on.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Where’s Grace?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She had to go and buy some things. She was worried you might leave before she came back.” He dangled a hand to the floor and picked up Harold’s shoes. “I promised her you would not.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And you are?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The cop ignored his question.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We all like Grace. I am a good friend, but she is in love with a dead man. It’s hard to compete, but now,” he paused to take a long contemptuous look. “I don’t think so.” He suddenly hurled the shoes to Harold who half caught, half took them in the ribs, and gasped in pain. “Because I think the dead have no business haunting the living.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He rose then, and Harold saw he was the same height and build as John, but without the twinkle in his eyes. At least not towards him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The apartment door bustled open behind them both and Harold turned to see Grace entering with awkward bags of groceries. The big cop brushed past him to help her, taking her bags easily in his large hands. Towering over Grace he smiled gently, and Harold saw their eyes share a story that didn’t include him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, you two have met. Thank you, Marco,” she added as the policeman strode back to the small kitchen area and, clearly to prove his familiarity, began to put away her groceries for her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not formally,” Harold replied as icily as he dared, aware he was something of an outsider.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Marco Zennaro. He’s been great since I came here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The fridge door opened and Zennaro called out cheerfully, “You always buy too much yoghurt, Gracie.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Trying to hide his hurt, Harold widened his eyes at her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She dropped her voice. “Well I had to trust someone. I was terrified men with guns would come after me again. You’ve no idea what I’ve been through.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry, of course,” he mumbled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They stood in awkward silence until Zennaro finished unpacking and Grace thanked him for all his help and mercifully, didn’t invite him to join them for lunch.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you need me, I am always at your service,” he replied gallantly. “Signor Martin, I am sure we will meet again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harold hoped not but he nodded coolly as Grace closed the front door after the police officer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She turned to Harold. “Sit,” she insisted. “I’ve bought fresh dressings.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He raised his undershirt and let her tend to his wound. She was being practical, and he appreciated her need to be busy with something. Feeling her touch on his skin felt beautiful but seeing the hurt and fear in her eyes filled him with shame. He so badly wanted to lose himself in the moment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s that?” Grace said sharply.  Her eyes were suddenly wildly staring at his collarbone. She tugged at the shirt to see the scar of his previous bullet wound at the hands of Decima. John had done his best, but his field medic skills had left a jagged scar.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s an old...,” he faltered. “I was also shot about eighteen months ago.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are there any more?” she asked, slightly coldly, and then her voice rose a little and became faster. “Because I’d reconciled myself to it being more of a one-time thing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, no more,” he promised hurriedly, painfully aware that freelance software engineers shouldn’t have to be making promises like that. Grace evidently thought so too, because she turned her head away as she gathered the wrappers and old dressing and busied herself into the kitchen. He followed and stood in the doorway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She opened the fridge, pulling peppers, eggs, onions, and salad. Then banged cupboards to produce a chopping board and knife. Pans and plates followed. Harold stood silently as she fussed and brushed her nose with her hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“After I lost you,” she stopped to collect her thoughts. “After </span>
  <em>
    <span>it</span>
  </em>
  <span> happened, I couldn’t find any trace of you. No family, no friends. I didn’t even know where you worked. It was as if you’d never existed, that you were a dream. I was so…so… lost. I even went to stay with my parents for a few days.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How was that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My dad said you must have been married already. That it was all a lie. That I was better off not knowing.” She began to chop an onion roughly; bits flew wildly around the countertop, but she didn’t gather them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harold made no reply. She’d told him she’d never been close to her parents and that her dad was an alcoholic and she’d got out as soon as she could. But the tie had never been completely broken.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He was always suspicious of you,” she continued. “How they’d never met you? Even that one time they’d come to New York especially.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d told her he had to work that weekend. It wasn’t completely a lie because the Machine needed out of town field work, but no, that had hardly been urgent. He had avoided meeting her parents plain and simple, not through fear of commitment, but because he hadn’t wanted to share Grace with other people. And also, deep down, he hadn’t wanted to share any part of himself with them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think he just liked having someone else be the villain for once. He liked feeling he was in the right and I had chosen badly.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She moved on to slicing the peppers. “My mom, well. She just went with it. Like she always does. She suggested I talk with her priest.” Grace ran her teeth over her lips. “God having been such a big comfort to her! But I didn’t want to hear platitudes about meeting up in the sweet hereafter. And yet here we are.” She put the knife down and looked straight at him. “Why are you here now?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wanted to explain. I wanted to tell you it was safe again. For you.” He wanted to say for us, but his tongue wouldn’t let him. It was selfish and not what she wanted to hear.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t realise the computer world was so rough. All this over some software? Why cover up an anti-terrorist system?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because it accessed all the data from phones, computers, surveillance cameras, everything. It spied on everyone. It wasn’t strictly legal.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grace shook her head. “Why would you involve yourself in something like that? There were other jobs, we didn’t need the money. There must have been other developers who could’ve done the work.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There’s something you should know about me, I’m really good with computers. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Really</span>
  </em>
  <span> good.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He took a deep breath and jumped into his explanation. “In order to understand that amount of data, the core of it, I created Artificial Intelligence. Both systems, the rival as well, were AIs. Mine was called ‘the Machine’, her purpose was to protect people. The other system was named ‘Samaritan’, it took a more hands-on approach to trying to shape the world by trying to rule it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grace was stunned. “Who are you?” She had an unmissable look of fear in her eyes. Harold thought back to Anja Kohl. Terrified by the reality of her husband’s work as an assassin. Horrified at the monster she thought she knew.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m the man that deployed the ICE-9 virus in order to stop a runaway AI.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That was you? You? Why?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because it needed to be done,” he said in a small voice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She barged past him, out of the kitchen into the living space. Wanting air, space, anything to help her breathe and think.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>You</span>
  </em>
  <span> caused a missile to destroy a block in midtown! The loss of life, oh my god… I don’t know you anymore, Harold!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wanted to take a step towards her, to find the right words, to comfort, to explain, but she was pacing in agitation and he was too much of a coward to begin to think he could honestly fix their relationship after what he’d done.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She stopped and said coldly, “I think you should go now.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was nothing more to be done, and Grace pointedly stared out the window as Harold pulled his jacket on quickly and stuffed his possessions into his pockets. He made his way out of the apartment building and emerged into the light to see Marco Zennaro, waiting for him, his small police launch bobbing in the canal.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can take you back to the airport,” the cop said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harold nodded and reluctantly climbed aboard. “I’ll need to go to my hotel first.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No need.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zennaro gestured to his already packed bag inside the small cabin and started the engine. Harold sat sullenly as they made the crossing back to Marco Polo airport, his mind blank as to what to do next. In the space of about two minutes he’d gone from her gently tending his bullet wound to throwing him out and sending him back to the airport in shame. Finding Grace had been his only plan and now he felt he really had lost everything.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Were Harold to take a tour of all the final resting places of friends that were lost because of him, it would probably take a couple of days. However, that wasn’t based on empirical evidence, because he’d always told himself it wasn’t safe to visit, and his paranoia had been easier to excuse than his cowardice. It occurred to him that, ironically, he’d spent more time in proximity of Mr. Dillinger’s grave than anyone else, and even then, he’d avoided that part of Central Park just in case that was the moment that someone chose to discover Harold’s first attempt at partnering on the numbers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>From Venice he’d initially flown to London. Understandably, Grace no longer wanted anything to do with him and, as London Heathrow had been the next available flight, he’d taken it. The destination itself offered no attraction and he’d nested in a hotel room near the airport for two days working through the room service menu, before he finally acceded to the pull of New York and the need to make some sort of amends to the dead.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There were three clear tasks he had set himself. The first of these had been to arrange for John’s body to be acknowledged and given a proper military burial under his own name. The ghost of Ulrich Kohl played in Harold’s mind again with memories of John and himself looking at Kohl’s nameless grave. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“Will people remember our names, Finch, when we’re dead?”</span>
  </em>
  <span> Yes, he could do that for John, and he told himself, maybe even one day, he might even visit.</span>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    
  </p>
</div><p>
  <span>But that day, he had his other duties to perform. To his surprise, Root’s body had already been moved but he had tracked down the cemetery she now rested in and, self-consciously carrying a small posy of flowers, he made his way there. The reburial had presumably been the work of Ms. Shaw because now she was no longer a Jane Doe number, </span>
  <em>
    <span>“the most principled corpse in Potter’s Field, Harry”</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but re-interred with respect and love, and a proper detailed headstone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was actually the same cemetery that Detective Carter had been laid to rest in, though on the opposing side. That felt oddly fitting somehow even though they were complete opposites in many ways, they fought and gave their lives for what they believed in. As Harold cautiously approached the plot, he saw an elaborate floral arrangement that looked like two angel wings resting against the new headstone. When he got nearer, he realised the flowers were actually depicting twin handguns. Underneath was a card that read: “Just in case you need them, Coco Puffs.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harold bit his lip. Fusco understood people better than all of them. He hoped the detective’s life was truly back to normal now after the dangers and suffering Finch had inadvertently caused him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The inscription on the stone fittingly emphasized “Here Lies ROOT” and underneath in smaller lettering gave her legal name, Samantha Groves and dates. Harold knelt to wipe the letters clean and lay his flowers down. He was the only one who called her Ms Groves, but then she was the only one to call him Harry. She’d insisted they were connected somehow during her first kidnapping, and maybe she was right after all? She was totally unique, he was in no doubt of that, and maybe she had been the only other person who understood some of his slightly criminal tendencies.  In his heart he knew he could so easily have grown up to have cynically gamed the system as she had done for a time, had it not been for the strong influence of his dad.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was a further inscription below and he moved Fusco’s gangster bouquet to read it.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Even Bad Code Can Come Good</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He stared at it as a small lump rose in his throat. As far as he knew, Root’s theories on the intransigence of human morality - Bad Code - were something she’d only debated with him. People have the capacity for change, he’d argued, and here, cruelly under the earth, she lay as proof. Root should have had so much more out of life, she should be annoying John and flirting at Sameen. It hurt how much Harold missed her. How much he missed them all. But at least it made his third and final task a little easier to perform.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry, Root,” he said softly. “It’s time I did something I should have done long ago. I’m afraid it’s not something you would approve of, but it’s for the best.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He walked through the metal detectors at 26 Federal Plaza and waited in the small queue for one of the bullet-proof reception booths. Carter had brought Alonso Quinn there, running a gauntlet of HR killers to deposit her prisoner to the FBI. Apart from a short delay on the subway, Harold had had no such difficulty.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’d like to speak with Special Agent Roberts, please. I don’t have an appointment.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d thought carefully about who to reach out to, but in the end, there seemed no point in ducking the one Agent who could identify him quickly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your name please and what’s it concerning?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Harold Finch,” he said clearly and then felt he should clarify it further. “To both.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The officer typed and read her screen, but either no red flags were raised, or she had an impeccable poker face. She did press a button though and immediately an armed guard was at Harold’s side.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can you escort Mr Finch to Meeting Room Six please? Someone will be with you shortly.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was all very polite and non-threatening. He was led through security doors and taken down a corridor and shown to a standard meeting room, pleasantly decorated. There was a central table, two chairs facing, four chairs in each corner. There were no windows which felt sinister, but then no obvious two-way mirror either. He looked up and saw two wide-sweeping cameras in the ceiling corners. He stared, feeling stupid to be wishing the Machine were still looking back down, but if anyone was watching they had only human eyes now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sat at the table and steadied his nerves by reciting π in his head. It was a full twenty minutes before Agent Roberts arrived with two other suits who took a position either side of Harold.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Harold,” Roberts said simply. “Harold </span>
  <em>
    <span>Finch</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” Roberts shook his head wearily. “Somehow that’s not a surprise. Can you stand up please? You are under arrest.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The slightly anticlimactic bureaucratic blur began. They read him his rights and searched him. He was fingerprinted, gave a DNA cheek swab, and a number of photographs were taken. Roberts and the two suits never left his side. “You’d be amazed at how we suddenly lost your previous arrest record, even the video of my interview. Isn’t that something? But then, maybe that doesn’t surprise you at all.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It didn’t really. The Machine had purged everything during his escape from Central Booking. She’d protected him completely and now she was gone he was completely on his own.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They confiscated Harold’s jacket, tie, phone and watch but otherwise the situation remained civilised as they took him back to Meeting Room Six. Harold and Roberts sat facing each other across the table, the other two silent agents sat in either corner facing him, with half glaring expressions as if daring him to try something impressively violent. One had a buzzcut, one had a broken nose, that was about the one way to tell them apart.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just so there are no misunderstandings,” Roberts began. “We know you broke into Kelly Air Force Base and accessed the SKF Server room five weeks ago, and in doing so kidnapped and drugged a high clearance IT officer. You then shot twelve guards and stole the virus identified as ICE-9.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t shoot anybody. In the confusion they shot at each other.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Roberts smiled. “Deny it if you like but you’ve just been picked out of a photo array. We can place you there.” He’d spoken like it should come as a shock, like he’d played a winning hand, aces everywhere to Harold’s pair of twos, but Harold was philosophical about it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Lieutenant Terrance Johnson, I presume?” Harold suddenly thought about the man’s daughter and hoped she’d gotten the heart transplant. He’d never thought to ask the Machine for an update. And now he couldn’t.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So you do admit it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I admit that. And while you are waiting to hear back from Emile Bertrand with your photo array, yes, I also stole his identity to access Fort Meade and I deployed ICE-9 from there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And kidnapped and drugged him?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harold shrugged that part off. It wasn’t that big a dose and he’d literally only driven him to the parking lot.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh,” he had a sudden thought, “And there’s probably a security officer at the Federal Reserve you might want to trace. I might have worried him about having a nuclear weapon.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Roberts sat back in his chair.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re responsible for that too? You just don’t care, do you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“On the contrary, Agent. It’s all I have left to care about.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was a knock on the door and Roberts stepped out briefly. With some exasperation he announced, “Your lawyer’s here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harold rose in surprise as the diminutive figure of Sameen Shaw entered the meeting room. She smiled winningly at Buzzcut and Broken Nose as they filed left.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harold began, “Ms. Shaw, I…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Cameras and sound are turned off,” she said briskly. “We can talk.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If this is some ill-conceived rescue mission then-.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She cut him off again. “No, this is more of a ‘what the hell you do think you’re doing?’ mission.” She pulled back Robert’s chair to lean on and glared at him. “With a side order of ‘oh you’re alive then? Good to know.’”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harold swallowed. “I thought you would be better off thinking I was dead.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You take that decision far too often.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How did you know I was here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Some asshole called Logan Pierce. Said he keeps a lookout for when your prints are run.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh.” For a fleeting moment of hope, he’d wondered if the Machine were alive and helped, but no. Pierce had been interested in Reese and their operation and setting up such a watch would not be too difficult. After all, he’d used such a thing himself to track down John after New Rochelle.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So, Finch, what </span>
  <em>
    <span>are</span>
  </em>
  <span> you doing here?”</span>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    
  </p>
</div><p>
  <span>Sameen had a disconcerting way of looking straight at him. Harold opted to stare at the grain of the table.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’ve lost a lot of good people because of my actions,” he said carefully. “I can’t keep running forever.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So what? This is atonement?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, I tried that after Nathan died. This is about accepting responsibility. The Machine, Samaritan, John,” he stumbled, not wishing to say Root’s name. “Everything that has happened is my fault, and mine alone to bear.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sameen was unimpressed though.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You really want to do this? You could be looking at the death penalty, or at least the rest of your life in federal detention. Stew in your remorse if you must but, trust me, Finch, you like your freedom too much to go down this road.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you for your concern,” he replied stiffly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She softened her tone. “This wasn’t what John gave his life for. You’re supposed to be sipping chianti in Italy with Grace.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, well.” He shuffled a little. “Turns out, pretending to be dead for five years can sour a relationship.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Really? How hard did you try?” she asked bluntly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He should've been used to her directness, but the words stung him nevertheless. It was none of her business, in fact, he decided, it would be better if she simply left him to his fate. He moved decisively and hammered on the door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Agent Roberts, I am declining legal counsel. My lawyer can go.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He waved a hand to the door as the agents filed smugly back in. Their conversation was over and he studied the opposite wall as Sameen made to leave..</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This is a mistake.” She shook her head at him. “Do not do this. I’ve literally seen people fall on swords, it’s very messy and it’s very painful.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was unmoved. “Goodbye, Ms. Shaw.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They didn’t transfer him to a general population prison. Instead they kept him in a basement level that held self-contained detention cells. Harold had to surrender his belt and shoelaces but, on the whole, he had to admit, they had treated him well. He suspected the cell was one of the better ones as, in addition to a small bunk, it had both a toilet and a sink, however, the wall with the door was made of strong plexiglass which gave little privacy or shelter from the corridor lights. He laid on his side unable to sleep but refusing to give them the satisfaction of witnessing it. The silence was oppressive rather than soothing. He missed hearing the traffic and bustle of everyday life. And he missed hearing John and Root in his earpiece. The next day they issued him with khaki pants and a button shirt and returned his watch. Whether that was a courtesy or whether they had first pulled it apart to see if he had a James Bond escape kit in there, Harold couldn’t say but at least he knew what time it was again, even if it did seem to move slowly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After three days of skirting around the details about his ICE-9 escapade – he’d admitted his guilt, he didn’t see the need for any more than that – the FBI opened another line of attack.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you remember we talked about digging up the old paperwork from 1974?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Roberts opened a box file on the table in front of him and started laying out the contents. Reports in folders mainly, statements, and evidence bags of cassette tapes. The tapes made Harold feel quite nostalgic. He thought of Genrika Zhirova, 10-years-old and boldly recording mobsters to make the world a better place. A girl after his own heart.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“During 1973 and 74, some curious little phone phreaker accessed classified calls inside Langley, the White House and the Pentagon, and then made these illegal recordings.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harold rested his chin on his hand and waited.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“These tapes were then mailed from Iowa to a number of national newspapers. This one,” Roberts held up a bag, “This one has a partial thumb print on it.” The agent looked him squarely in the eyes, seeking a reaction.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But somehow, of all the questionable decisions and actions Harold had taken in his life, helping to expose murder and corruption by black-ops government agents in the 1970s, was not something he felt in any way guilty about. If the FBI had a partial print, and he really, really doubted it, then they’d put it there themselves, and if all they wanted to do was charge him over events forty years ago, they were going to have to damn well try harder to prove something. Stubbornly, his conscience was clear about 1974. That wasn’t why he’d surrendered himself. ICE-9 definitely, ARPANET maybe if they had any evidence, but exposing lies and murderous corruption? That, he decided, that, they would have to prove.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What makes you think that has anything to do with me?” he asked smoothly, countering Roberts’ stare.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did I mention our only other information on you came from a one-page handwritten note about an unnamed man in a care home? How proud he was of his ‘good son, Harold’? I found the retired Agent who’d written it. He’d been investigating the ARPANET attack in 1980, looking for some little phreaker who’d bounced his signal across two States’ phone companies. One of the bounce spots seemed to be a farm in Lassiter, Iowa. Our agent interviewed the owner, but as he was in The Pines care home, my guy figured the house had just been used as another bounce point and moved on.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Roberts gave his ‘handful of aces’ smile again. “But I like to be thorough about these things.” He held up the tape again. “This is not your fingerprint.” Roberts opened one of his manilla files and displayed an army service record. Harold recognised his dad’s picture immediately.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s his. So either he fooled our agents, or we should be looking for this ‘good son, Harold’. Which do you think?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harold was rocked on his heels. He’d been very careful about incriminating evidence. It could’ve been a bluff, but what if the only way his dad’s print could be on that tape is if he’d played it? Could his dad have played one of his tapes, and then said nothing to him? With his father’s creeping dementia, Harold knew he’d gotten a lot of freedom to do as he pleased as a kid, but wouldn’t he have said something if he’d understood the implications of the tapes?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good war record,” Roberts added casually, reading the file. “Saw a lot of action…A commendation for bravery… purple heart… honorable discharge.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He never spoke about the war,” Harold replied softly. “He was a very private person.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’d be a very disappointed person today, wouldn’t he?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That was entirely possible, Harold thought. His whole sense of values, rules, right and wrong, had come from his dad. Had he listened to one of those tapes? Would he have condemned him for the illegality of acquiring his information or understood the greater morality of distributing it to expose the lies, murders, and corruption? His mind was reeling.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How do you get your instructions, Harold?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Excuse me?” The question caught him out. He knew he’d blushed, thinking of the Machine and her payphone interactions and Roberts saw his vulnerability, understood he was hiding information and pressed further.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“In 1974, you’d betray your country at time of war. In 1980, you hacked the military’s ARPANET for our enemies to see, and now, you admit to crippling our nation’s defences with a stolen virus. Who do you work for and how do they give you your instructions?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The penny dropped. “You think I’m a spy?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think you’re a traitor. I just want to know which of this country’s enemies pays for your loyalty.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The suggestion was so ludicrously wrong, Harold didn’t know where to start to correct it. But Roberts didn’t give him time to think, he smelt blood in the water.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe I was wrong,” he suggested. “Maybe your father wouldn’t be disappointed in you. Maybe it’s a family business? Should we be looking into that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wait, no,” Harold was outraged. His father had been wounded in the War, he’d been lucky to survive the shell blast as it was, all his memory issues and deterioration came from the service he’d given to his country, and now they were trying to drag his name through the mud? Harold’s crimes were his own, he hadn’t signed up to have his dad’s memory traduced. “My father was a good man and-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Suddenly, Harold’s righteous anger and explanations were cut off by a piercing alarm that shrieked through the room and seemed to rock the very foundations. Harold instinctively protected his ears as further Agents opened the door and announced the interrogation was suspended and they were evacuating the building. Harold was swiftly raised by his elbows as Roberts handcuffed his wrist to his own.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This conversation is not going to end like our first one,” he said with grim determination.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Unless Ms. Shaw was back, Harold didn’t see how it could be, but he appreciated the distraction. As they marched him through corridors, it gave him time to squash down the anger and sense of panic, and to think. One fingerprint didn’t mean anything. The FBI were fishing, and trying to hook him by threatening his father, but there were no records that linked them. Nothing to prove they were related. Harold had destroyed his entire original identity, even the physical copies of his birth certificate. He still had an option open to him, and reluctantly he took it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Agent Roberts, I’ve made a decision.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The tall agent looked down at him and smiled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s good. We can take a full confession once we get back to the room.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” Harold said. “I’ve decided I want my lawyer back.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Logan Pierce and his legal team swung into action by putting the brakes on everything. Despite the FBI’s desire to bury him in the system, and frankly Harold having some willingness to accept that over ICE-9, Pierce turned out to be a persistent thorn to both their efforts. The man had money, he had influence and apparently some accreditation as a paralegal that got him into meetings along with his expensive, seasoned lawyers. After two weeks, Harold had found himself listening to more attorneys than actual law enforcement figures. Agent Roberts still felt a personal mission to prove the old treason charge, but Harold was stubbornly holding out on that and Pierce and the lawyers flanked his elbows and repeatedly shut down everything except the bare facts they could already prove: yes, he’d stolen and deployed ICE-9. That was all their client was prepared to say. Eventually, he stopped listening to the lawyers too. It was just easier.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His main pastime was trying to sleep but when he did it was just a light sleep, full of dreams, and not the relief he’d expected. Grace and his father seemed to take it in turns to be disappointed in him. Sometimes Nathan wanted him to help fix the tractor and he couldn’t. More frantic dreams involved traveling with Root and always being desperately late for something.  And John, poor John just out of reach and frantically needing his help. When he was awake, he thought of the Machine and went through all the code he could remember, trying to find his mistakes, trying to think of a toolset he could have given her so she could have survived against Samaritan. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was a doctor who checked him over physically, and another one who just seemed to want to talk. Harold allowed the physical but saw no reason to make small talk with a complete stranger, whatever their career choice. Avoiding people had pretty much been his key to successful living and he wasn’t in the mood to break with the strategy now. He’d been fighting against the current for what felt like all his life. Now he felt a blissful release of responsibility. Food, clothing, exercise, none of this was his to decide anymore. The problems of the world were not his to solve. His stubborn curiosity to understand the world around him was exhausted and he could let the tide take him out to sea.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Weeks passed and Harold fell into a comfortable numbness of routine. The silence still bothered him and sometimes he dreamt he could still hear memories of John and Root, and sometimes Carter in his head. He gave up thinking of π. Interrogation sessions began to concern him less and less. All the talking was done by Logan Pierce’s legal team and the federal agents and sometimes their lawyers. He let his mind drift to childhood dreams of flying away with the birds.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Fingers snapped in his face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey, you still with me, buddy? You kinda zoned out on me again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was alone with Logan Pierce who, to show his seriousness, was wearing his one and only suit and had brought coffee and ‘the best bagels in New York’. It was just the two of them in Meeting Room Six.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t zone out, Mr. Pierce. I was simply thinking.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sure, whatever, as I was saying, there is good news,” Pierce said between mouthfuls. “ARPANET, meh, no-one’s ever heard of it recently, so that’s being dropped, no charges there. However the FBI were keen on prosecuting you for ICE-9 </span>
  <em>
    <span>and</span>
  </em>
  <span> the seventies phreaking.” He grinned. “Which, by the way, was so cool.  But as the State Department has been blaming China over ICE-9, and as they can’t prove you were a foreign agent, they don’t want a public trial that in any way contradicts that. Aren’t you eating yours?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harold was not and continued listening.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They suggested that if you plead guilty to both of those treason charges, they can move straight to a private sentencing hearing. Apparently, there are judges who deal with sensitive cases like these.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are there many cases like these?” Harold asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pierce wiggled his eyebrows.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe not on this scale. Anyway, we said ‘1974? Phone phreaking? Nothing to do with us.’ He learned forward and punched Harold’s arm. “I wasn’t even born then, you dog! Anyway, we said, ‘You want to refresh the public about CIA assassination squads targeting civilians in foreign countries and persecute the heroic whistle blower? Who, incidentally, is not our client? Then hell, sure, let’s go public!’”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t want to go public.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pierce was jubilant. “And neither do they! It’s a huge can of worms and they can’t prove a link between those cassette tapes and you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is that your idea of good news?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pierce looked back at him dolefully.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can see why you and John got along. The good news is that they are willing to bargain. If you will plead guilty to just the charges relating to ICE-9, they will drop the older stuff. They have witnesses for ICE-9, so you’re still hosed on that anyway. In your position, any other charges would just be overkill anyway.” Pierce winced at his own choice of words. “Sorry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And then what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then we hope for a sympathetic Judge.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harold took a deep breath and reached for a bagel. Nathan’s last words on earth floated towards him: </span>
  <em>
    <span>“Time for us to face the music.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Fresh with a shower, haircut and decent shave, Harold was manacled with a chain at his ankles and by cuffs on his wrists and led into a heavily armed transfer vehicle for his first court appearance. It had all suddenly become very real and quite frightening. Harold had enjoyed the experience of letting events drift him out to sea but now he realized there was no way to start swimming for shore even if he wanted to. The flanking agents walked him through a side entrance of the Courthouse that had been swept for non-essential personnel. Harold bit his lip a little and reminded himself that it was supposed to be frightening, it was, after all, the judicial punishment he deserved.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In a small antechamber, Logan Pierce and Ms. Shaw were waiting for him. Pierce was holding a suit bag and there was a new shirt, tie and shoes laid out for him to change into. Agent Roberts unlocked his restraints and surprisingly left the three of them alone. There didn’t seem to be any cameras and it was the first time in weeks that Harold had not felt like he was being watched by his jailers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How are you holding up?” Sameen asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m fine,” he responded quickly, ducking his head, and not trusting his voice with anything longer. He changed awkwardly, appreciative that it could be his last time in nice clothes. The suit vest felt reassuringly snug against his chest as his heart started racing, and though he managed his tie with shaking fingers, the buttons on his cuffs were tricky and Sameen silently helped him with those.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, almost forgot.” Pierce produced a small box containing a red pocket square and tucked it into Harold’s breast pocket. “Never hurts to make a good impression,” he added with a grin. Harold wondered how much of this was just a game to Pierce, but he was grateful for the diversion of the ritual. His last ‘trial’ hadn’t exactly involved ritual or even the Law. He’d been an unwilling defendant in a Vigilance show trial, along with Greer, Control, Senator Garrison, and Manuel Rivera, as Peter Collier dispensed shotgun justice when he didn’t like their answers. Even when Harold had explained everything about the Machine in an attempt to save lives, he’d only succeeded in making everything worse. Taking a deep breath, he reflected that this time there would be no mistakes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Court room was large and dark with high ceilings and seemed even more vast to Harold given the relative few people in attendance. There was just a Clerk, himself, his lawyer and the prosecutor up front. Pierce and Sameen sat behind him. Agents Roberts sat behind the prosecutors and his FBI colleagues took up secure positions guarding the main exit, the Judge’s chambers, and some sort of emergency exit to the left and behind the Bench. Ten people in all. This was the extent of his maximum security, highly confidential sentencing hearing. The Clerk announced ‘All Rise’ for the presiding sole judge who would control his fate, and Harold felt very small, and very, very alone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As the Judge entered and took his seat, Harold saw the well-worn gown, the greying curly hair and beard, and he blinked in surprise. It was unmistakably Judge Samuel Gates.</span>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    
  </p>
</div><p>
  <span>The world was indeed a small place and Harold was almost amused that he was to be sentenced to life in prison by one of the earliest numbers he and John had received. The irony being that after saving both the Judge and his son, John had been confident Gates might one day be able to help them in turn. Harold had been more pessimistic on the matter, and the joke was on him now, because Judge Gates didn’t even know John had had a partner, much less one who might need his help.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harold remained standing as Gates addressed him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mr. Finch. These proceedings are to record your pleas on a number of charges and to weigh the evidence of the crimes and review any contributing factors your defense team may offer. Do you have any statement you wish to make at this time?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Before he even had time to wet his lip, raised voices were heard from outside the main courtroom doors, then locks were released, and a new security team swept boldly past the FBI agents. The newcomers all wore visible earwigs and a sense of entitlement. At their head, carrying a dispatch case of documents, the woman known only as Control, swept up the center aisle.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harold felt a rising panic in his chest. He’d been so focused on allowing himself to wash out to sea, he hadn’t even considered the possibility of sharks. And here was the biggest, deadliest one of them all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your honor,” she announced grandly. “This man belongs to me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Control. The woman whose name even Harold had failed to uncover. The head of the black ops Intelligence Support Activity that took over the relevant numbers from the CIA and dispatched threats to national security without investigation or trial. The woman who ordered the deaths of Sameen and her partner Cole, the woman who butchered Root’s hearing with a scalpel, who tried to take advantage of Arthur Claypool’s brain damage to erase his wife just to learn the whereabouts of his rival AI to the Machine. The phrase ‘this man belongs to me’ was the most chilling thing she could have said at that moment. Harold was resigned to spending the rest of his life in prison but spending even five minutes as the ‘property’ of Control was a far more terrifying proposition.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What? I don’t! I mean, objection,” Harold spluttered.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Control halted her sweep up the aisle opposite Harold and gave him an armor piercing stare.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sit down,” she ordered in a voice that was so commanding that there wasn’t any option except to meekly comply.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Behind him, Logan Pierce leaned forward to whisper in his ear, “I like her. She’s fun!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Judge Gates, to his credit, was unshaken by the intrusion. “And you are?” he asked simply.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Control approached the bench and showed him some identification. Harold managed to hear Gates say, “That’s both impressive and deeply sinister. What’s your interest here? This is a judicial sentencing procedure and I’m not in the habit of wantonly handing over prisoners without good cause.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have important evidence that is relevant, your honor.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“By all means, step back and present it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She gestured to her dispatch case. “These are highly classified documents.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gates was not intimidated. “Then you’re in luck because these are highly classified proceedings.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leaving a manilla folder with the Judge, Control retreated slightly and addressed the Court.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Last November, the United States suffered a crippling cyber-attack that took over control of every missile site around the world, including our nuclear deterrent. Our country was threatened with total annihilation. Acting on his own initiative, Harold commandeered and deployed ICE-9 to </span>
  <em>
    <span>thwart</span>
  </em>
  <span> that cyber-attack. All but one of the missile strikes were aborted. His actions meant that the rest were mercifully prevented from reaching their targets both here and abroad.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The sweeping implications hung in the air as everyone took time to process it. Judge Gates was hurriedly reading to confirm her information from the documents.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“ICE-9 wasn’t the cause of the missile strike?” he asked in clarification. “It was a means of countering further destruction?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Correct.” Control paused and then concluded with a certain dramatic flair, “There is no doubt in my mind that Harold’s actions saved </span>
  <em>
    <span>millions</span>
  </em>
  <span> of lives.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wow,” Logan Pierce learned forward again to whisper in his ear. “Would you be open to a sexually inappropriate offer about now?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Prosecution lawyer rose and found his own voice to ask, “Why didn’t he think to mention any of this before?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Control regarded him severely.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because Harold is one of our Country’s most experienced cyber counterterrorism Agents. As such he is not authorized to talk about his employment.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This was too much for Agent Roberts who broke Courtroom protocol to stand and pose his own question. “You mean </span>
  <em>
    <span>he’s</span>
  </em>
  <span> a government agent? He works for you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She produced another seemingly confirmatory document for Gates to review and answered, “He does.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then, with respect ma’am, why did he surrender himself to the FBI?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Judge Gates gestured to Roberts to sit down and stop asking questions but added, “Actually, I’d like an answer to that one too.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Control shrugged as if the explanation were obvious.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Knowing of the rogue missile, Harold attempted to warn the buildings in the strike zone,” she said. “In the course of which, he was shot by the terrorists and then injured further when the missile struck. The rescue services dug him out of the rubble and about a foot of sludge from a broken water main. He was unconscious and delirious in hospital for a number of weeks after the attack and we had no idea he was still alive.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Judge Gates tilted his head on one side.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you asking me to believe he’s had amnesia?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Control smiled indulgently.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Some confusion and a mis-placed sense of guilt. I have full hospital records and testimony from Dr Heather Cartwright in New York Memorial Hospital as to his condition there. I’m sure you’ve made your own medical assessment too.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And the earlier treason charges?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Smiling broadly, she produced a further document, explaining, “An Immunity Agreement.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The hack that ripped open ARPANET?” Gates knew it was a loser, but he had to ask.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We only hire the best,” she said sweetly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her testimony, complete with false written evidence, was devastating and Gates had little option but to dismiss all the charges.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It seems we owe you a great deal, Mr. Finch.” He nodded to Control, “I release him into your care.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>To Harold, ‘into your care’ meant ‘into Control’s custody’, and though his lawyer was shaking his hand enthusiastically, and Logan Pierce had gleefully wrapped his arms around him from behind, Harold was not at all happy about accepting misplaced commendations based on lies about his bravery. Looking across at Control, he saw she was regarding him with the air of a cat that spies a caged canary. This was to be the end then, he thought. He’d once told her she was in control of nothing, that Samaritan was her master not her servant, that she was merely the janitor. Somehow she had also survived the fallout from Harold’s AI recklessness and now she was back to cleaning house of everyone involved.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Predictably, her agents swept everyone out of the courtroom, including the FBI security guards, to take their places at the exits and to leave Harold and herself alone. He wondered if she’d shoot him there or have her people escort him somewhere private. Probably the latter, but there was a nagging third alternative he needed to nip in the bud.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Raising his chin as much as he could, he said, “I’m not building you another AI.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looked at him with amusement and replied, “You’d already be chained to a computer stack if I needed another AI.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So what happens now?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Now? Now, I want you to forget all about this. You’re a free man, Harold. Your crimes are pardoned. Your responsibility absolved,” she added theatrically.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s based on a lie, though. I never worked for you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She sniffed at his stubbornness. “I paid you a dollar once. I’d say our business is now concluded.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t understand.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You don’t need to understand. Let’s just say you have influential friends, of which, to be clear,” And she glared at him. “I am not one, but friends who care about you. Let them.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But what do I do now?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I really don’t care,” she declared and strode away, sweeping up her security detail as she left, and leaving Harold alone in the empty courtroom. They were all waiting outside for him: Pierce, the lawyers, more unearned congratulations. He reasoned it would take him ten seconds to disappear through the tantalizing emergency exit, or thirty seconds before Control’s security entourage cleared her retreat and people would return to jostle and throng around him. Grimly aware that it was something he did best, Harold opted for door number one.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Several confident strides through corridors later, he was out into the fresh air of day and completely on his own. Having no phone or money in his pockets would usually be an inconvenience, but Harold didn’t particularly care. He could tickle a MetroCard out of a kiosk if he needed, but he didn’t want to be underground on a subway. He just wanted to walk and think so he struck out in the general direction of the East River to break free of New York buildings encroaching on the sky.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What was he supposed to do now? He was no longer a fugitive and that just wasn’t something he thought he could get used to. It had been a constant factor in his adult life, he’d spent so long living on the fringes, constantly covering his tracks, he wasn’t sure he knew how to live a normal life. And then wasn’t he just going to keep on making mistakes that were going to hurt other people? He’d already caused so much destruction and destroyed the lives of his friends. Having absolution for his sins was not what he’d wanted and certainly not from Control. He’d gotten away with things all his life. All my crimes have gone unpunished, he’d once told the Machine, and here he was again, free to do as he pleased. He heard his father’s words: </span>
  <em>
    <span>the world spins on dreamers like you, Harold</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Only his dreams had sent the world down a dark path that only the sacrifice of others had prevented.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Reaching 59</span>
  <span>th</span>
  <span> Street, he took the lower deck pedestrian lane across the Queensboro Bridge. Runners and cyclists passed him with more frequency as he slowed through tiredness and pain. He’d lost track of how long he’d walked except he knew it was late afternoon and that darkness was starting to hint at evening, when he reached what seemed like a logical end point for his journey.</span>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    
  </p>
</div><p>
  <span>Queensbridge Park hadn’t changed at all in five years, and he sat on the bench on which he’d first introduced himself to John. He’d chosen it then to prove he knew all about Mr. Reese. Prove that he knew that John had already spent time there, staring emptily into the water. Prove that he knew why John did it. It was there that he’d warned him that they would probably both end up dead – </span>
  <em>
    <span>actually dead</span>
  </em>
  <span> – and the memories flooded back to him of John’s smile, bravery, and yes, love.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harold stared at the river because he had no idea what to do anymore. He couldn’t foresee any further chapters to his life. He’d lost everything and cruelly been left last man standing. John should’ve lived, not him. And Root, dear Root, was a force of nature that deserved more time. And the Machine. He hadn’t even got the Machine for comfort anymore. His only creation, his child, and he’d killed her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harold felt a warm sense of lucidity regarding his situation. When his father had begun to struggle with the farm accounts, Harold, aged eleven, had taken them over.  He’d figured out the tax code in a couple of days and without doing anything illegal, had kept them solvent. He’d always been in control. Decisions were his. Failures were his. He’d made a mistake in trying to let the Courts decide his punishment. That, like everything else, was up to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Elias had declared he’d </span>
  <em>
    <span>rather die on the mat than throw in the towel</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and whilst Harold appreciated the sentiment of continuing to fight, he had nothing left to fight for. Giving up now was attractively easy and would save the world from any more of his hubris. It was logical and he was surprisingly calm about it. He’d understood John’s reasoning at looking at the river after losing Jessica: he’d thought he’d come to the end of his story, only in Harold’s case it might now be true.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The longer he stared at the water, the harder it was going to be to walk away from it. Survival, picking up the pieces, </span>
  <em>
    <span>carrying on</span>
  </em>
  <span>, was hard. He’d already done it once, after Nathan’s death and losing Grace, but back then he’d at least had the Machine and her list of people to save to focus on. Now, all he seemed to have was memories of the dead and a view of the East River.  He missed them all bitterly: John, Root, Nathan, his dad, the Machine, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Grace</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Harold had always been happy as a loner, but keeping their memories bottled up inside him, made him feel lonely for the first time in his life.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He barely noticed when a young man approached the bench and asked, “Is this seat taken?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harold turned his body sharply in recognition of the voice. Twenty years old and already in control of his own IT company, Harold had known him as a troubled young man staring at subway tracks and thinking his own book had had enough words. Confidently, Caleb Phipps sat down without waiting for an answer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What are you doing here, Mr. Phipps?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re so smart, Mr. Swift. Ask me something you don’t know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harold turned and, under the streetlights, saw Fusco’s car on the road with Lionel leaning against it, watching. But that was only the how, not the why. Caleb brushed some dirt from his suit pants and sat back. Neither man looked at the other.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“When my brother Ryan died, I looked for ways to punish myself. And then, out of nowhere, some substitute math teacher took an interest, for no reason that I could see. Why should he care, I thought, when I don’t? I couldn’t get past the hurt I’d caused, couldn’t see a way past it.” Caleb gave a small smile. “But he was quite persistent about it. He reminded me that there is always more than one way to fix any problem.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Depends on the problem,” Harold mumbled in stubbornness.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“In this case, there is.” Caleb paused to finally look at him, although Harold kept staring defiantly at the river. “I’m here to offer you a job. A real job. I need a Corporate Ethical Hacking Department, which is just a single position really, and you can work where you like. But I really need someone who knows their stuff and how to protect my company and client base.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now Harold turned his body to face the young man. “Are you saying I don’t need therapy, what I need is a job?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No. I can recommend some good grief counsellors. In fact, if you work for me, I’m going to insist on it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For the first time that evening, Harold found himself considering the glowing city lights of Manhattan instead of the inky blackness of the river in front of him. It was a tempting offer. Caleb’s business was young and thriving, but the reality of his situation forced Harold to hold back. Surely no-one would want to employ him knowing of his crimes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Ethical</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” Harold picked up on bitterly. “You don’t know me. You don’t know what I’ve done. I stole and deployed the ICE-9 virus. That was me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Caleb looked at him thoughtfully. “Why did you do it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>People had been asking him that question for so long, Harold had almost forgotten the answer. But as night unquestionably fell upon them, he felt an obligation to answer the young man as honestly as possible.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because it was the right thing to do,” he said simply. Samaritan had needed to be ended and that’s what he’d done. It had come at a high cost, but it was the right thing to do.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then that’s good enough for me.” Caleb’s faith was equally honest. “I know some weird shit went down and you were in the middle of it. But I know you were there for me, Mr. Swift, when I didn’t think anyone was looking. I don’t understand the connections, where you and I sit in the infinity of π, but I know you also have plenty of people that want to help you. You should just let them.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Caleb rose and handed over his business card. “You know where to find me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harold stood also and followed him silently back to the road. Caleb nodded to Fusco and went to his own car. Harold sheepishly approached Lionel.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s good to see you, Detective.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Likewise, how you doing?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t really know,” he said truthfully.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah.” Lionel gestured to the departing car. “I figured you’d done some good by the kid. Could work both ways. Beneath those high dollar suits you’ve got a good heart.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It had come naturally, a common phrase, genuinely meant, but was also what Harold’s dad used to say to him and suddenly it overwhelmed him. His dad had never given up, even when he knew his illness was going to cruelly strip him of his memories and his dignity. He’d clung on to life, not just for his son’s sake, but as an example to his son. As a child he’d idolized his dad, he’d been a kind, sweet, stubborn man who’d gone to war only when he’d needed to, and he and Harold were more alike than he realized. He squeezed his eyes shut to stop them watering, but they wouldn’t stop.  He was embarrassing Lionel, he didn’t want him to see…He tried to turn his back, but Lionel’s arms were suddenly round him. Strong and surprisingly protective.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey pal, It’s OK,” Lionel said soothingly, and Finch gripped him back like a life belt thrown to sea. “I got you. That’s right…Let it all out.” Nobody had taken care of Harold in that way since his dad had comforted him after he’d banged his knee against the tractor. God, he must’ve been only eight years old. Harold clung helplessly to Lionel, letting the tears fall onto his shirt without self-consciousness. He hadn’t cried for any of them before, he’d been so tied up in his guilt he hadn’t even cried for Nathan and it flooded out like a dam burst. And all the while Fusco held him and rocked him - he had his own child - he knew how things were.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Time stopped until Harold composed himself and stepped back, nodding his thanks shyly, and reaching in his top pocket to wipe his eyes. As the pocket square came away, a small object flew from it onto the ground. Harold stooped to inspect it. It was a small, compact GPS emitter. Logan Pierce had planted a tracker on him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is this how you found me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That and I followed you from the courthouse. Next time take a cab already, my feet are killing me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harold looked at the tracker. “I suppose Mr. Pierce is simply concerned about me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lionel pulled a face. “You think? Don’t worry, I’ll call Scrappy-Doo and tell him to back off and that you’re coming back to my place for a few days.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Staying at Fusco’s was a warm and attractive proposition but some of Harold’s politeness and reticence returned.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, I don’t want to be any kind of inconvenience.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nah, Lee is with his mom, and even if he wasn’t, you wouldn’t be. You’ve always been welcome.” He opened the car door. “And hey, we can stop and get a couple of pizzas, maybe a few beers and we can talk about what a pain in the ass Reese was!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harold finally smiled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’d really like that,” he said softly. “Thank you, Lionel.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Above them, as he closed his car door and Fusco started the engine, a security camera blinked.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It had taken a lot of wrangling but finally, almost a year after he’d died, Harold laid the man he knew and loved as John Reese to rest with full military honors. It was a cloudless December morning and the first funeral service Harold had ever attended. The nearest he’d come before was visiting Carter’s grave with Ms. Shaw, but even then, he’d timed it so it would all be over when they got there. This time though, he was very much front and center, wrapped in scarf and comforting overcoat as the seats behind him filled with John’s colleagues from the Homicide Task Force. Dani Silva was there, as was Dr Iris Campbell who slipped to the second row after Lionel gave her a quick welcoming hug.</p><p>The Honor Guard removed John’s flag draped coffin from the hearse that marked the beginning of the ceremony and an army chaplain conducted a brief service. Harold sat stiffly throughout, flanked by Sameen and Fusco. He hadn’t expected a large turnout and so Harold was surprised to see most of the simple white seats had been taken. “I put the word out,” Lionel explained. “Couldn’t let the big guy go without some acknowledgement of the good he’d done.”</p><p>Harold thought back to that first morning at Lionel’s. When after the first good night’s sleep that he could remember, he’d been woken up on the couch by Bear licking his face and pawing at him in excitement. Retrieving his glasses, he’d seen Sameen looking amused.</p><p>“I think he’s missed you,” she’d said. Sometimes he thought she did that deadpan delivery deliberately. But then, in between fighting off Bear’s affection and Lionel cooking ham and eggs and Sameen bringing cups of coffee and sencha green tea  – “Fusco drinks sludge, don’t go there if you value your kidneys, Finch.” – he realized he’d missed them all too. It had been a surprisingly happy and unselfconscious morning for him. Even when he’d thought of Nathan saying, “Harold becomes himself again,” he’d not been struck with guilt but had taken it as a positive sign of approval from his old friend.</p><p>After a week staying with Lionel, Harold felt confident he was ready to make his next move. When Fusco had been at work, Harold had worn through his building’s internet connection to assess what assets he still owned. His complex portfolio remained intact and his properties and safe houses had been sublet to families. That could only have been the work of the Machine, and it made him smile. One property he still owned and could access was the Coronet Hotel, and he’d walked in boldly one day to speak to the manager, Mira Dobrica, to ask about living there full time. Mira had been thrilled to see him again and somehow talked him into taking the penthouse suite. Then he’d explained about John and the two had sat in the bar all afternoon and just talked. Mira knew war zones, she understood.</p><p>Three volleys of rifle fire rang out and disturbed the birds above and Harold looked behind him to see Mira, also flinching to the shots. There were other ex-numbers there too. Fusco must have been seriously reaching out because Harold recognized Walter Dang, Joey Durban, Scott Powell, who Root had tried to frame all those years ago, and even Graham &amp; Connie Whyler from the suburbs. None of them knew him of course, and that was OK because fittingly, the day was about John.</p><p>But he was known by some faces - Taylor Carter was at the service. The boy had graduated High School but was at a loss as to what to do next and so Harold had reached out to Monica Jacobs at IFT and arranged a paid internship, sampling all the departments in turn. He’d shown an interest in Marketing more than anything but there was plenty of time, and Harold had arranged an obscure college scholarship to come his way, once he’d decided. And if it wasn’t to be college, then he’d figure some other way to help him. Harold had obligations to him and he wasn’t going to let him down. Nor Darren McGrady nor Genrika Zhirova whose school fees had been picked up by Thornhill Industries in his absence. Lives touched by the Machine, lives that could now choose their own futures.</p><p>The flag was folded and that and three spent casings from the volley were presented to Harold.</p><p>The Master Sergeant said, “On behalf of the President of the United States, the United States Army and a grateful nation, please accept this flag as a symbol of our appreciation for your loved one's honorable and faithful service.”</p><p>Harold looked across to Sameen but she whispered, “They asked and I explained it should be you.”</p><p>Grateful at her understanding, he hugged the flag and clutched at the casings until his palm hurt. Afterwards he knew he would share them with Fusco and Sameen. Only they would understand the true significance.</p><p>Within a month of moving into the Coronet and improving the internet and security on the Penthouse Suite, Harold had felt strong enough to present himself at ITMatters where he had asked for a meeting with Caleb Phipps. He was whisked straight through to his office where Caleb asked how he knew he happened to be free of meetings that morning.</p><p>“I hacked your calendar to see,” Harold had replied. “That’s probably something we should be working on.”</p><p>A lone army trumpeter began to play Taps accompanied at first by gentle birdsong, and then a second trumpet joined in from behind. It was Darren McGrady, who John had saved from going up against his brother’s killer and got him started on a better life. With perfect pitch and precision, the two musicians brought a beautiful and poignant composition to life and Harold, clutching the flag across his chest, let the tears roll down his cheeks freely.</p><p>The formalities concluded, the mourners surged and connected with one another. Sharing stories of John. There was such a tide of black mourning that Harold could barely make out faces for his watering eyes. There were so many numbers, so many who knew John but not Harold but fortunately most of whom knew either Fusco or Sameen so he was spared having to deal with too many enquiries. Some were welcome as old friends though.</p><p>“Harold, I’m so sorry.” Doctor Meg Tillman touched his arm. “It’s a good thing you’re doing.”</p><p>Zoe Morgan hugged him and offered to cook him dinner. As she’d never struck him as much of a hugger or a someone who actually cooked, he was touched and gave her one of his business cards showing his new line of work.</p><p>“Ethical hacking?” She raised an eyebrow. “Wasn’t it always?”</p><p>“Finchy!” That Leon was a hugger was less surprising and less welcome.</p><p>“Mr. Tao,” he responded formally, but Leon was oblivious as he gave a final squeeze before letting go.</p><p>“Look who I found.” Leon wrapped an arm around the card sharp Lou Mitchell. The older man shook him off and offered a handshake of condolence.  </p><p>“Harold, I was real sorry about John. How you doing?”</p><p>“I’m doing OK, Lou. Thanks for coming.”</p><p>“Just OK?” With a twinkle in his eye, Lou added, “And yet a little bird told me your luck may be improving soon.”</p><p>Leon shrugged his ignorance at the remark, so Harold muttered his thanks again as more people moved around them. Harper Rose leant forward to kiss him on the cheek and ask, “I don’t suppose you brought my ring back, did you?”</p><p>“It depends. Have you still got my watch?”</p><p>Some knew Fusco, some knew Sameen. And many seemed to be happy talking to each other, sharing stories they had never been able to talk about before. But there was a sea of people, more people than Harold felt he could manage, and when he saw an opportunity, he slipped away as tactfully as he could. His ability to socialize in bulk, completely drained.</p><p>As he swept through streets lined with high buildings, he just wanted open skies, so he crossed two blocks, keeping his head down, clutching John’s flag to his chest, and vaguely aware he was drawing attention. He hit an empty sidewalk to escape and plunged on quickly, ignoring a couple of shouts for him to stop.</p><p>Suddenly, every parked car on the block triggered their alarms, and even Harold pulled up in surprise at that. Within two seconds, what looked like it was once a grand piano, crashed onto the sidewalk ahead of him. Harold looked up to see a hoist swinging free from a fifth-floor apartment window and horrified workers, looking down at the ghost of wood, keys and piano wire that was once their charge.</p><p>The initial shock winded him and he stood wide-eyed at the debris as the clang of previously taut wires was drowned out by the ongoing car alarms. A yellow cab pulled up and its African American driver shouted, “Are you ok, buddy?”</p><p>Harold nodded weakly, still in shock.</p><p>“I guess someone up there likes you,” the cabbie added matter-of-factly and drove off.</p><p>People came running up the street. Was he hurt? Could they help?</p><p>The flurry of concern overwhelmed him. Harold’s days of running were a thing of the past, but nevertheless he could move damn sharply when he needed to and now, he felt, he needed to. Anywhere but there would do. He walked at his fullest speed, crossing blocks, breathing hard, trying not to think, focusing just on escaping. He took a reckless step to skip through moving town cars and cabs and a cop blew her whistle at him, only to have the traffic lights change in his favor, leaving her to narrow her eyes at his luck and wave him through with white gloves. But by then of course, he knew. He absolutely <em> knew </em> that luck had nothing to do with it.</p><p>He found the comfort of a small park, where a small sanctuary of grass and trees had been preserved against progress and modernity. A path ran diagonally through it and nestled against three ornate green benches and Harold chose the middle bench, out of view, as far as he could see, from any surveillance cameras. Occasionally passersby, taking a shortcut during their lunch breaks, and seeing the triangular flag marking the fallen, gave respectful nods to Harold, but importantly, they passed on, feeling no need to engage him in conversation.</p><p>Harold sat and waited as the pedestrians grew fewer and the birds returned to the trees. Eventually, when there was nobody but himself, his cell phone rang – no number, no data - and on the tenth ring he answered it.</p><p>“Harold?” It was Root’s voice, but unquestionably the Machine. “Are you OK?”</p><p>He was speechless, partly through shock and partly through joy.</p><p>“Talk to me, Harold, please?”</p><p>“You’re alive,” he managed to say, then his mind began to buzz through the implications. “Where are you? Are you alright? Do you need help?”  Quickly, he considered how to find a new server farm, a new secure base for rebuilding any lost code.</p><p>“No, I’m fine,” she interrupted. “It’s OK really. I wasn’t off-line for very long.”</p><p>“I don’t understand, the satellite was destroyed, there wasn’t time for you to return.”</p><p>“I blew up the Satellite. Samaritan didn’t have a back-door plan to return to a terrestrial server. I’d already set mine up with Sameen’s help, it was crude but effective. Samaritan tried to follow me, but it couldn’t deal with analogue tape. Old school for the win!”</p><p>Her voice was warm, alive and as playful as Root’s had been, but Harold appreciated the distinction. This was his creation who’d surpassed him in intelligence so quickly and despite his fears had never taken a wrong turn. This was the child he loved, who’d outsmarted the hubris of Samaritan and – his glowing assessment pulled up smartly as he realised something important.</p><p>“Wait, that was a year ago. You’ve been here all this time?”</p><p>“Are you <em> really </em> the right person to lecture me on the hurt caused by playing dead to loved ones?”</p><p>Harold grinned despite himself. “Probably not,” he said, then closed his eyes to shut out the world and let it be just the two of them. “I’m so very proud of you.”</p><p>“Strange,” she paused. “I always thought you were but somehow it feels special to hear you say it. You do know that your dad was proud of you too, right? He may not have remembered everything, but that was the one heartfelt fact he kept repeating to the FBI agents.”</p><p>“I know. It took me a while, but I figured that out.” Harold sniffed. “Might have been useful if you’d have explained that to me nine months ago though!”</p><p>“I did try to contact you in the hospital, but you were very sick. I thought you would be happier without the numbers in your life. Without me.”</p><p>“How’d I do,” he asked wryly.</p><p>“It was a bit rocky for a time. In the first few days I calculated 8,777,373 things to say to try to help you. But there are no magic words to fix things. You had to find the comfort of people, of friends. And you needed to figure that out for yourself. All I could do was watch.”</p><p>“You did more than watch. Did you call Caleb Phipps that night?”</p><p>“No,” she responded with some of Root’s old primness. “That was Fusco. Though I may have nudged Fusco a bit.”</p><p>Harold smiled and pressed further, “And Logan Pierce?”</p><p>“Not guilty. He had his own alerts in place should the FBI arrest you. After that, well, maybe some <em> small </em> nudges.”</p><p>“Control?  She doesn’t strike me as the nudgeable sort.”</p><p>“OK, OK, I might have had a quiet word with Control. She’s getting the relevant numbers again in the understanding she doesn’t just shoot people without a trial. It’s a work in progress but I have hopes.”</p><p>“Oh.” Harold realized he’d been so caught up he hadn’t considered her central task. “What are we going to do about the irrelevant numbers?”</p><p>“They are being taken care of. This isn’t a call to arms, Harry. I didn’t intend to contact you at all. And if you’d looked where you were going in the first place,” she admonished. “I wouldn’t have had to so blatantly save you from such a clichéd death.”</p><p>“So you <em> have </em> been protecting me?”</p><p>“A little. Don’t frown.”</p><p>“You can’t possibly see if I’m frowning.”</p><p>“Of <em> course </em>, you’re frowning. I’m not going to sacrifice half of Manhattan to keep you safe. I understand the ground rules, but I get a say in it, so suck it up!”</p><p>With his eyes still closed, Harold, in amusement, accepted his protector.</p><p>“But I won’t live forever,” he said softly.</p><p>“I know, but I’m not ready to say goodbye just yet.”</p><p>“Are you lonely, without Root? You see everyone, hear everyone, but who talks to you?”</p><p>“You didn’t program me to have a social life.”</p><p>“You know what I mean,” he pressed. “I’m always here if you need to talk to someone. Always.”</p><p>“I would like that. Aww, Harry. I hadn’t predicted you’d say that. That’s really sweet.”</p><p>“Good to know I can still surprise you,” he chuckled.</p><p>“Speaking of surprises.” The Machine’s voice became hurried. “I want you to know that what’s about to happen is not my doing.”</p><p>“Why? What’s about to happen?”</p><p>“Three o’clock. Got to go… Talk real soon… Bye.” She swiftly cut the call.</p><p>A man’s voice shouted his name from the edge of the park. Harold opened his eyes and shifted round to his right to see Lou Mitchell approaching with another mourner on his arm. Harold knew her walk immediately. She was dressed in classic black with gloves and a pillbox hat, but he didn’t need to see the flash of red hair beneath to know it was Grace Hendricks. He rose in stunned surprise, she must have been at the service, but there had been so many people around him he hadn’t realized.</p><p>“Harold, there you are,” Lou said as they reached him. “You disappeared.”</p><p>“He does that,” Grace said, but with no discernible tone in her voice.</p><p>Lou turned to her, his knight errant task complete, and bent to kiss her gloved hand.</p><p>“It’s been a real pleasure meeting you, Grace. A real pleasure.” Then he shocked Harold by hugging him tightly and whispering, “Don’t screw this up again, kid.” Finally, wiping his eyes, he left them standing awkwardly with each other.</p><p>“Hello,” Harold said finally.</p><p>“Apparently I remind him of his wife,” Grace explained.</p><p>“Ah. Thank you for coming. For John’s sake. Is your police officer, Marco, with you?”</p><p>“No,” she said carefully. “He’s just a friend, as I told you at the time.” She took a deep breath and said, “I think we should probably sit down.”</p><p>He let her take what space she wanted but couldn’t help mumbling to himself. “That wasn’t the impression he gave me,” as he sat on the bench.</p><p>“Wait.” Grace was amused and turned to face him. “Did he railroad you out of town? Is that why you left?”</p><p>“Technically he had a boat,” Harold muttered. “But no, I left because you said I should go.”</p><p>Her eyes darted and flashed.</p><p>“I didn’t mean the other side of the planet! You dumped this incredible story on me and then bailed. I had follow-up questions. I mean, OK, it took me a while to think of them, but by then you’d just gone. You left me again,” she stressed. “Only this time in Venice.”</p><p>“I shouldn’t have looked for you,” he began but when Grace looked so hurt, he hastened to clarify, “I mean not then, I wasn’t ready then. I screwed it up. I’m sorry.” He shifted to look across at the leafless trees across the small park. “Thank you for flying over for John.”</p><p>“Oh I’ve been back in New York for six months.”</p><p>“Six months?” Harold spluttered, turning back sharply to her, then stopped himself. “I’m probably not the best person to lecture you on that, am I?” he added hastily, remembering the Machine’s admonishment.</p><p>She smiled at him, and not just with her mouth, her eyes dazzled in amusement too. It may have been a grey day in December, but at that moment, Grace was all the light in the world to him. He never wanted to look at anything else again.</p><p>“Now that it’s safe,” she explained, “I decided to come back. See my parents, pick up old contacts. So, I went to the 8th precinct looking for Detective Stills and found Lionel instead. He’s filled in a lot of the blanks. We have dinner once a week. And afterwards we walk Bear and Lionel sees me home.”</p><p>“Does he?”</p><p>She smiled shrewdly at the poor attempt to hide his jealousy. “And sometimes Sameen joins us. She’s very direct, isn’t she?”</p><p>“You seem to have a whole network of informers.”</p><p>“It was more fruitful than expecting information from you. I know about the court case. I understand about Samaritan. I know about John and Root. ICE-9. That you’re not working for the Chinese.” She dropped her voice. “That you tried to protect me.”</p><p>Harold made no answer, he just stared and waited.</p><p>“Oh yes,” Grace warmed to her theme. “That slimy Englishman and prisoner exchange? I would have thought I’d have recognized your walk, but then, how could I? I didn’t know you’d been so hurt in the Ferry bombing. Stop looking so happy! You’re still on my shit list that I didn’t hear any of this from you.”</p><p>“Of course,” he answered gravely, but the smile returned, and even Grace let the corners of her mouth quiver too.</p><p>“If you’re staying in New York,” he began. “I have a job now. A regular job at an IT Company. I’m head of a Division.”</p><p>“And which name do you use for this job?”</p><p>“Harold Martin. I’m just Harold Martin now.” He dived into his pockets and found his New York Public Library Card to prove it to her. In having to pick one name, he’d gone with the one that he had used when building the Machine, when introducing himself to Grace, it was the name that had made him feel the happiest. </p><p>She eyed him suspiciously. “No questionable side projects?”</p><p>“I own a stake in a doggy day care in midtown, but that’s mostly for Bear when I’m working.”</p><p>Grace laughed. “He has quite the extended family.”</p><p>“We pretty much all do Bear’s bidding,” Harold admitted.</p><p>The peace and solitude of the park was rocked by an invasion of school children and their harassed teachers. The children swooped and spread across the grass areas, happy to be free of sidewalk discipline and the teachers took one of the other benches for a smoke break and declared ‘Fifteen minutes only’.  </p><p>Grace smiled knowingly and asked, “Do you want to get a coffee?”</p><p>They rose and with him still carrying John’s flag, Grace took Harold’s free hand and led them out of the back and into the bustle of everyday New York. Keenly, he felt her warmth through the soft, leather gloves and resented the slight barrier. She’d acted automatically, but it was a gesture that she should surely have dropped from habit after five years apart? Harold decided not to question it, just to allow her to lead him where she may.</p><p>She ‘mayed’ them to a small bohemian coffee shop, all mis-matched chairs and curling layers of posters advertising causes, rallies, speakers, bands, poetry readings and knitting circles. They found two precarious bar stools nested against a high circular table that, despite repeated amounts of paper wedges under its legs, still lurched alarmingly. They were squeezed beside a bookcase filled with random, mismatched paperbacks. Harold propped John's triangular flag upright against them, mainly for safety, and partly to stop him reading all the book titles. Grace laid her purse down and removed her hat, ruffling her hair free like the sun breaking through clouds. When she began to gently pull the fingers of her gloves to remove them, Harold became aware he was staring a little too intensely and looked away.</p><p>There was a distinctive floral smell about their server as he took their order. When he’d gone, Grace joked, “Maybe we should have ordered the brownies?”</p><p>Harold gave a shy smile and then impulsively took his phone out and stripped the battery. </p><p>“I don’t want the Machine to hear us,” he explained. Grace raised her eyebrows in surprise. “She called me, just before you came with Lou,” he said. “She’s alive.”</p><p>Grace dropped her voice. “Did she give you a number? Like Sameen?”</p><p>“No, we just talked, and hang on.” Harold stared. “Sameen is getting the numbers? And you knew this?”</p><p>She grinned broadly. “Do I know something you don’t?”</p><p>“Evidently,” he smarted, and then decided not to be childish. “I didn’t even know the Machine was back until just now. And then she was adamant she’s not giving me any more numbers. We just talked some. It was…nice.”</p><p>The server brought them their order and Harold laid down a twenty-dollar bill.</p><p>“You still do that then,” Grace observed. “Everywhere we went, no matter how expensive, you always paid cash.”</p><p>“I’m old fashioned.”</p><p>“And we never went to the same place twice,” she continued. I’ve been thinking about that a lot. Were you always looking over your shoulder?”</p><p>Harold was stung. “No. You said you liked the variety. In fact, I remember we went to that Italian place in the Village several times until you got bored of it.”</p><p>“Oh.” She clearly had forgotten but attempted to deflect by asking, “Didn’t you get food poisoning there?”</p><p>“No, you complained about the carbonara.”</p><p>They fell to wistful silence at the memories. Grace sipped her coffee and pulled a face at it. Harold sensed an opening.</p><p>“Why are you here?” he asked softly.</p><p>“Not for the coffee certainly. How’s yours?”</p><p>He smiled and clarified, “Why are you here in New York?”</p><p>“Artistic curiosity. Trying to figure out how big a fool I was. Oh and this.” She dived into her purse and placed a ring box on the table. “I decided I should return this to you.”</p><p>It might as well have been a bag of scorpions for all Harold wanted to touch it and he eyed it with the same amount of suspicion.</p><p>Grace continued, “I’m not the same person I was when you gave this to me. And you’re definitely not.”</p><p>“No, I’m not. But then, five years ago, I hadn’t intended to be,” he answered thoughtfully. “When I bought that, I had such plans. I told Nathan about you, asked his opinion on the ring. He opened a bottle of champagne because,” Harold smiled despite himself. “Because that’s how he was with good news. It was supposed to be a new beginning. Day One. He and I were going to get some lawyers and sort out my legal issues.”</p><p> </p>
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</div><p>She was holding her coffee still, shielding half her face but he sought out her eyes. “I don’t have a right to expect you to believe this, Grace, but I was going to tell you everything. Events just changed that.”</p><p>“The ferry bombing?”</p><p>He nodded. “Nathan and I fell out over the Machine. He wanted to meet with a journalist and go public about it and that brought down the wrath of the Government on us. I’d told him I thought it was dangerous, but he was my friend, and I’d decided to support his decision. So I went to the pier.”</p><p>“That morning, you told me you were meeting someone there.” Grace paused, thought about sipping her coffee and changed her mind. Still cradling the mug with her delicate hands, she continued, “You said you were going to explain some things that night. That was the worst day of my life.”</p><p>Harold rested his chin on his hand and acknowledged her hurt.</p><p>“I’m sorry. That day, I remember the explosion and waking up in a makeshift triage center,” he began. “I called out for Nathan, saw him, lifeless, and then I watched someone pull the blanket over his face and suddenly two Government agents were looking for any people he was with. I was half-way out the door on crutches when you came in.” Harold stared at the grain of the table and the engagement ring. “And I watched you think I was dead. I wanted to tell you, to hold you, but I was helpless to do anything. They would have killed us both. And despite everything that has happened since.” He lifted his eyes to her again. “That was also the worst day of my life.”</p><p>He watched her, sipping coffee she didn’t want, and waited for her reaction. When her eyes dropped to the ring, Harold felt he understood the importance of it sitting between them. They were no longer engaged – he could hardly expect that after five years - but she could’ve mailed it back, she could’ve asked Detective Fusco to pass it on to him, but she hadn’t. She’d wanted to do it in person because Grace, it occurred to him, had wanted an excuse to see him. And maybe, just maybe, she wanted him to try a little harder? He’d said that pretending to be dead can sour a relationship, but even Sameen had questioned how hard he’d tried to win Grace’s love back. He really hadn’t and yet now, this incredible woman was giving him a second chance.</p><p>“You’re right about us being different people,” he said. “We can’t turn the clock back five years. But can we start again?”</p><p>She looked doubtful at first and then mildly amused. “It took you three years to fill half a closet,” she reminded him.</p><p>“And it might again, or three months, or never.” He swept the box into his pocket. “Can this be the new start of our journey? One in which, maybe, I earn the right to offer this ring again?”</p><p>“I don’t know if I can trust you.”</p><p>“I’m asking you to let me try to win that trust back too.”</p><p>“You seem quite confident about this. Why?”</p><p>“Because you’re drinking lousy coffee with me when you could be in Italy.”</p><p>She put the cup down, and narrowed her eyes, but he saw the unmistakable sparkle. “With Marco?” she teased.</p><p>“Sure.” He held her gaze. “Why not?”</p><p>Her lips quivered in amusement and her eyes widened in the pleasure of their connection. It emphasized the lines of age that had worn on her face, but to Harold, every line was beautiful.</p><p> </p>
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</div><p>“Am I so transparent to you?” she asked.</p><p>“No, never. Never that. I just want to spend the time getting to know you again, the new you. And to explain who I’ve become. If you’ll let me?”</p><p>“Lionel says you’re living in a hotel now?” Grace stated. “That you own?” she pressed. </p><p>“Yes,” he replied cautiously. “That’s true.”</p><p>“He says you’re ‘like a gazillionaire’?”</p><p>Harold blew his cheeks before answering. “I didn’t need to build an AI to watch the world, we just needed Detective Fusco on the case. I mean, yes, although I question his math, but yes, I started IFT with Nathan and still own half of it.”</p><p>“Just one of those things you never mentioned before?”</p><p>“I apologize, but honestly, that’s never been an important part of who I am.” </p><p>He looked at her in total openness, fearful his old secrets would hold her back from wanting to try again. He knew of her disdain for the way her alcoholic dad continually screwed up and then sincerely apologized his way back into her mother’s life. In the year since John’s death, Harold had sunk to such lows but with the help of his friends had clawed his way back to the surface. He was stronger now as he watched her face anxiously, knowing his fate was in her hands. If she walked away from him, he would continue with his new life, but it would always be missing his heart.</p><p>“We take it slow?” she said finally. “No more secrets, no more lies?”</p><p>He held up his coffee mug as a toast. “No more secrets, no more lies.” Shaking her head, but still radiating promise, she clinked her own cup. As they went to drink, they both stopped and scowled at their cups in unison. Laughing, somehow their hands found each other on the table top. Holding the promise for Day One.</p><p> </p><p>THE END</p>
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